The CrossingPort Augusta And The Left Turn
Eyre Highway Done
Rain and wind followed me along a quiet back road into Port Augusta. The Eyre Highway stretch ended after 38.4 kilometres, with enough daylight left to see where I had arrived.
Port Augusta had been creeping toward us for days. After Nuttbush Retreat it was finally close enough to think about as a same-day destination: less than 40 kilometres, with the hope of reaching town by mid-afternoon and giving ourselves a few hours off the feet before the turn South towards Adelaide.
That counted as a short day.
The morning made the change feel official. A major intersection appeared on the Eyre Highway… turn left towards Port Augusta (and then on to Adelaide), or right towards Whyalla, which yet again was in the wrong direction. Sorry again, Whyalla!
About 6 kilometres into the second session, the change became more than a sign. I said goodbye to the Eyre Highway and followed a quiet back road that headed straight into Port Augusta.
Quiet did not mean empty. It threw up a few unexpected places of interest, including a military facility and the local airport, and there were glimpses of civilisation ahead. That felt unusual in itself. So many HAA days had finished in darkness, or at a roadside stop, or somewhere that still felt like the middle of nowhere. Walking into town in daylight added to the sense that a phase was nearing completion.
It was a wet start and a windy day, which felt about right for South Australia by then. The Ceduna-to-Port-Augusta stretch had turned into an unexpected extension of the Nullarbor in my head. Ceduna had felt like civilisation at the time, but that had been optimistic. This section had been colder, wetter, hillier, and still full of empty space. It had also been full of people, jokes, weird little landmarks, and the sort of moments that kept the whole thing from becoming just distance.
The pipeline appeared again too. After spending so much time along the Goldfields water pipeline in WA, finding another pipe running through the South Australian landscape felt like bumping into an old friend, or at least a close relative of one. I wondered whether this one would go all the way to Port Augusta.
The short day still had plenty in it. There were views over the hills, rail crossings, range-control signs, an airport sign, and the Port Augusta cloud factory: clouds manufactured at the tall chimney stack and released over the nearby hills. That was my story, and after that many kilometres it made perfect sense to me.
There was also a Lord of the Rings joke, because of course there was. I posted an image asking “on a scale of one to Lord of the Rings, how much did you walk today?” and decided that even on an “only” 39 km day, I could claim the full extended director’s edition.
The tracker line across Australia was starting to look impressive, but it had been made metre by metre. Ben and Ols had handled the daily support work while people encouraged, donated, organised and turned up in ways we couldn’t have planned.
I finished in Port Augusta with 38.4 kilometres done for the day and 2541.5 kilometres accumulated since Canning River parkrun. The Eyre Highway section was done. It had been a bloody long way.
The early finish gave us power, facilities and time to recharge at Shoreline Caravan Park before the next six-day push.
Onwards to Adelaide.
Images From The Day
